anna seghers the mythic dimension

Anna Seghers

Anna Seghers: The Mythic Dimension Helen Fehervary http://www.press.umich.edu/titleDetailDesc.do?id=17315 The University of Michigan Press

Social History, Popular Culture, and Politics in GermanyGeoff Eley, Series Editor

Anna Seghers: The Mythic Dimension, Helen Fehervary

Staging Philanthropy: Patriotic Women and the National Imagination inDynastic Germany, 1813–1916, Jean H. Quataert

Truth to Tell: German Women’s Autobiographies and Turn-of-the-CenturyCulture, Katharina Gerstenberger

The “Goldhagen Effect”: History, Memory, Nazism—Facing the GermanPast, Geoff Eley, editor

Shifting Memories: The Nazi Past in the New Germany, Klaus Neumann

Saxony in German History: Culture, Society, and Politics, 1830–1933,James Retallack, editor

Little Tools of Knowledge: Historical Essays on Academic and BureaucraticPractices, Peter Becker and William Clark, editors

Public Spheres, Public Mores, and Democracy: Hamburg and Stockholm,1870–1914, Madeleine Hurd

Making Security Social: Disability, Insurance, and the Birth of the Social Entitlement State in Germany, Greg Eghigian

The German Problem Transformed: Institutions, Politics, and Foreign Policy, 1945–1995, Thomas Banchoff

Building the East German Myth: Historical Mythology and Youth Propaganda in the German Democratic Republic, 1945–1989, Alan L. Nothnagle

Mobility and Modernity: Migration in Germany, 1820–1989,Steve Hochstadt

Triumph of the Fatherland: German Unification and the Marginalization of Women, Brigitte Young

Framed Visions: Popular Culture, Americanization, and the ContemporaryGerman and Austrian Imagination, Gerd Gemünden

The Imperialist Imagination: German Colonialism and Its Legacy,Sara Friedrichsmeyer, Sara Lennox, and Susanne Zantop, editors

Contested City: Municipal Politics and the Rise of Nazism in Altona,1917–1937, Anthony McElligott

Catholicism, Political Culture, and the Countryside: A Social History of theNazi Party in South Germany, Oded Heilbronner

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Anna SeghersThe Mythic Dimension

Helen Fehervary

Ann Arbor


http://www.press.umich.edu/titleDetailDesc.do?id=17315

Copyright © by the University of Michigan 2001All rights reservedPublished in the United States of America byThe University of Michigan PressManufactured in the United States of Americac Printed on acid-free paper

2004 2003 2002 2001 4 3 2 1

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Fehervary, Helen.Anna Seghers : the mythic dimension / Helen Fehervary.

p. cm. — (Social history, popular culture, and politics inGermany)

Includes bibliographical references and index.ISBN 0-472-11215-5 (acid-free paper)1. Seghers, Anna, 1900—Criticism and interpretation. I. Title.

II. Series.PT2635.A27 Z635 2001833'.912—dc21 2001001996


Contents

Preface vii

Introduction 1

1. Mythic Topographies: Art and Art History in Mainz and Heidelberg 13

2. Landscapes and Seascapes from the Dutch Masters 29

3. Ecce Homo: The Legacy of Rembrandt 44

4. Island of Ignominy: Kierkegaard and the Budapest Sunday Circle 66

5. The Archetypal Map: Georg Lukács and the Way of the Soul 96

6. Legends from the Carpathians, Tales of the Purges 122

7. Myth and Redemption: At the Roman Limes with Walter Benjamin 148

8. The Show Trials and the Trial of Jeanne d’Arc: Collaboration with Brecht 175

Biographies 205

Appendix: The Libraries of Young Anna Seghers and Young László Radványi 213

Notes 219

Index 269

Illustrations following page 52


Preface

My ability to conduct research and to see the writing of this book throughto completion owes a great deal to individuals and institutions, and toeach and all I express my gratitude. The National Endowment for theHumanities supported archival research in Berlin in 1994 with a SummerStipend and Travel Allotment within the Initiative on the Emergence ofDemocracy. A three-month Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst(DAAD) Research Study Grant allowed me to continue library andarchival research in the fall of 1994. Archival research in Budapest in 1997was made possible by a Research Travel Grant from the InternationalResearch and Exchanges Board (IREX). The support of the Ohio StateUniversity College of Humanities and Department of Germanic Lan-guages and Literatures allowed me to embark on my project with theaward of a Faculty Professional Leave for the year 1993–94. CollegeGrants-in-Aid in 1994 and 1996 helped fund research travel, and mydepartment made possible additional travel support and adjustment in myteaching schedule. The staff of the Humanities Information Systems cameto my aid in the conversion to a new programming system, and my con-tinued education in electronics under the guidance of my colleague GregorHens was made altogether bearable by his serene company.

A number of people enabled me to conduct sustained research inarchives and libraries. I acknowledge in particular the cooperation of theknowledgeable staff at the Akademie der Künste–Berlin am Robert-Koch-Platz, where I worked in 1994 and in years following, especiallyRenate Graßnick, who was responsible for the collection in the Anna-Seghers-Archiv until her retirement in 1999. Special thanks go to Mari-anne Berger of the Anna-Seghers-Gedenkstätte in Berlin-Adlershof forher readiness to respond to inquiries, whether in person, by mail, or bytelephone, and above all for her keen interest in my project and trust in me,permitting me to work in the Seghers library undisturbed in 1994 and sub-sequent years in search of inscriptions, notations, and other clues among


the over nine thousand books stacked in double rows on shelves reachingfrom ›oor to ceiling. The work was tedious, the ‹ndings all the moredelightful, and without them, this would have become, if at all, an alto-gether different book.

I also express thanks to Friedrich Schütz, Director of the StadtarchivMainz, for clarifying information pertaining to the history of the Reilingfamily; to Erdmut Wizisla, Director of the Bertolt-Brecht-Archiv inBerlin, for allowing me access to a variety of materials over the years; tothe archival and library staff who assisted me at the Hungarian Academyof Sciences, the Petö‹ Literary Museum, and the Széchenyi Library inBudapest; to László Sziklai and his staff at the Georg Lukács Archive andLibrary in Budapest; and especially to the Mannheim and Radványischolar Éva Gábor, who generously gave of her time and provided insightconcerning the Budapest Sunday Circle.

I am indeed fortunate to have had conversations over the years withindividuals who knew Seghers intimately: Christa Wolf, Stef‹e Spira,Stephan Hermlin, and Seghers’s children, Pierre Radvanyi and Ruth Rad-vanyi. I am particularly indebted to Ruth Radvanyi for generously givingof her time and offering hospitality in Berlin. I also wish to acknowledgeSonja Hilzinger for her interest in my work from the very start, and for thesame, the scholars in the Anna-Seghers-Gesellschaft in Berlin, above allFrank Wagner, whose discernment and friendship did much to spur me on.

Here in the United States I have been heartened over the years by theinterest and support of friends and colleagues; special thanks are dueDavid Bathrick, Sander Gilman, Jost Hermand, Patricia Herminghouse,Robert Holub, Leila Rupp, Egon Schwarz, Marc Silberman, and FrankTrommler. Peter Beicken and Arpad Kadarkay kindly read the manu-script in the summer of 1999 when it was in its last stages. I am especiallygrateful to David Hayes, whose humanity and wit encouraged me to con-tinue on a journey that took me into ever more uncharted territories; andto Erika Bourguignon, who read early drafts of the chapters and whoseinsights as an American anthropologist born in Vienna lent our discus-sions wide-ranging life perceptions and more than occasional goodhumor. I owe particular thanks to the series editor, Geoff Eley, for his ini-tial interest and con‹dence in the manuscript, and to Liz Suhay of the Uni-versity of Michigan Press for seeing it through the review process andoffering sound editorial advice and encouragement.

Finally, I express my gratitude to Georgine Kopeczek Biedermannfor help with some of the more subtle nuances of the Hungarian language;and to Maria Corvera Fehervary for countless hours of reviewing,rethinking, and reformatting, allowing me to be brought up to date at longlast in the language of the computer—and no less for her request years ago

viii Preface


that I read her that story: Anna Seghers’s Shelter, about a German boywho loses his parents to the Nazis and is taken in by a French working-class family in Paris. The story hardly worked the more familiar wondersof the fairy tales, but it nonetheless became part of our household’s new“canon,” adding signi‹cantly to my appreciation of Seghers and thus pro-viding a kernel of sorts for the later project of this book.

But the ‹rst idea for the topic, particularly for chapters 4–6, goes fur-ther back, to a casual remark made by Ferenc Fehér in the mid-1970swhen I visited him and Ágnes Heller in Budapest. “You know, there aremany interesting things in Lukács’s life and his papers that have to do withAnna Seghers,” he offered. “You’re Hungarian, after all; you know thelanguage; you should know there’s quite a topic you could write abouthere.” No, I didn’t know, and in my youthful exuberance about moreburning matters, I didn’t much care. Years later I happily rememberedFeri’s words. To his memory, and to that of the other “wayfarers” whohaunt its pages, this book is dedicated.

The following articles that I published during the course of my researchcontain the prolegomena to some of the ideas that are elaborated uponand transported into entirely new contexts in the separate chapters of thisbook: “Anna Seghers’s Seelenmalerei and the Mannerism of HeinerMüller’s Theatre,” in Responsibility and Commitment: The Ethics of Cul-tural Mediation, ed. Klaus L. Berghahn, Robert C. Holub, and Klaus R.Scherpe (New York: Peter Lang, 1996), 225–41; “Brecht, Seghers, and TheTrial of Jeanne d’Arc—with a Previously Unpublished Letter of 1952 fromSeghers to Brecht,” The Brecht Yearbook 21 (1996): 20–47; “Die Seelen-landschaft der Netty Reiling, die Stimmen der Jeanne d’Arc und der Chil-iasmus des Kommunarden László Radványi,” Argonautenschiff: Jahrbuchder Anna-Seghers-Gesellschaft 5 (Berlin: Aufbau Verlag, 1996): 118–36;and “Landscapes of an Auftrag,” New German Critique 73, special issue onHeiner Müller, ed. David Bathrick and Helen Fehervary (winter 1998):115–32. The relevant sources are acknowledged in the pertinent notes tothe chapters. I wish to thank New German Critique for permission toreprint in revised form passages from my article on Seghers and HeinerMüller (NGC 73, winter 1998) in chapter 6; and The Brecht Yearbook forpermission to reprint in revised form sections of my article on Seghers andBrecht (Brecht Yearbook 21, 1996) in chapter 8.

The preparation of a text-critical, annotated, and commentated edi-tion of Seghers’s works using a text base of ‹rst editions is only just underway (Anna Seghers, Werkausgabe, 24 vols., ed. Helen Fehervary andBernhard Spies, [Berlin: Aufbau Verlag, 2000–]). Where possible I havequoted from published English translations. Otherwise I have relied on the

Preface ix


reprint editions of individual novels published by Aufbau Taschen-buchverlag since 1993 and the six-volume Aufbau Taschenbuchverlag edi-tion Erzählungen 1924–1980 of 1994. These editions use the same text baseas the fourteen-volume Gesammelte Werke in Einzelausgaben authorizedby Seghers and published by Aufbau Verlag between 1977 and 1980. Theedition Erzählungen 1924–1980 also includes previously unpublished texts.Where I have quoted from Seghers’s essays, my main source has beenAnna Seghers, Über Kunstwerk und Wirklichkeit, ed. Sigrid Bock, 4 vols.(Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1970–71, 1979).

Unpublished letters and other archival materials quoted are so acknowl-edged in the pertinent notes. I am grateful to the following for permission toquote from such materials: Anna Seghers’s and László Radványi’s heirs, Dr.Pierre Radvanyi (Paris) and Dr. Ruth Radvanyi (Berlin); Akademie derKünste zu Berlin, Anna-Seghers-Archiv und Gedenkstätte and Bertolt-Brecht-Archiv; Magyar Tudományos Akadémia Filozó‹ai Intézet, LukácsGyörgy Archívum és Könyvtár; and Petö‹ Irodalmi Múzeum.

Grateful acknowledment is made to Dr. Ruth Radvanyi, Berlin, forpermission to reproduce the original photograph of Netty Radvanyi(Anna Seghers), 1925, and Joachim Cmok, graphic artist, Berlin, for pho-tographic reproduction. Acknowledgment is further made to the BritishMuseum for permission to reproduce The Three Trees by Rembrandt; theStaatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden for permission to reproduce TheJewish Cemetery at Ouderkerk by Jacob van Ruisdael; the StaatlicheMuseen zu Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett, for permission to reproduce TheLandscape with the Spruce Branch by Hercules Seghers and Ecco Homoand Study after Leonardo’s Last Supper by Rembrandt; the Musée Jacque-mart-André for permission to reproduce The Supper at Emmaus, 1629, byRembrandt; the Louvre for permission to reproduce The Supper atEmmaus, 1648, by Rembrandt; the Rijksmuseum-Stichting Amsterdamfor permission to reproduce Christ in Emmaus, 1654, and The Twelve-Year-Old Jesus in the Temple, 1654, by Rembrandt; the Bibliothèquenationale de France for permission to reproduce Christ Preaching (Lapetite tombe) by Rembrandt; and the Philadelphia Museum of Art for per-mission to reproduce Head of Christ (Portrait Study of a Young Jew asChrist), attributed to Rembrandt.

A time-consuming task in the preparation of this book has been thatof translation. A signi‹cantly large number of sources from which I quoteare not yet available in English. These involve above all Seghers’s shorternarratives, essays, and letters, on which I draw in all eight chapters, as wellas published sources and unpublished archival materials in German andHungarian from which I quote especially in chapters 4–6. Wherever possi-ble I have relied on existing English translations, as in the case of Seghers’s

x Preface


novels The Seventh Cross, Transit, and The Dead Stay Young and her nar-rative The Revolt of the Fishermen; and on translated works by Lukács,Benjamin, Brecht, and others. All published translations from which Iquote are acknowledged in the notes to the individual chapters. Where Ihave deemed it necessary to make alterations in the translations, theseadjustments are likewise accounted for in the notes. Unless thus indicated,all translations from German and Hungarian are my own.

Columbus, Ohio August 2000

Preface xi


anna seghers the mythic dimension

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